Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/868

850 five years : Scotorum Histories a prinia yentis origine cum aliarum et rerum et gentium illustratione non vulgari : prcemissa epistola nuncupatoria, tabellisque amplissimis, ct non, poenitenda Isayogs, quce ab hujus tergo explicabitur di/usius. Quce omnia impressa quidem sunt lodoci Badii Ascensii typis et opera ; impensis autem nobilis et prcedocti viri Hectoris Boethii Deidonani, a quo sunt et condita et cdita, fol. The title and colophon have no date, but the commendatory epistle by Alexander Lyon, precentor of the cathedral of Elgin, bears the 15th of March 1527. This edition contains seventeen books. Another edition, con taining the eighteenth book and a fragment of the nineteenth, was published by Ferrerius, who has added an appendix of thirty-five pages; Paris, 1574, fol. Though published at Paris, the latter edition appears from the colophon to have been printed at Lausanne. The composition of Boece s history displays much ability ; and if the style does not always reach the standard of ancient purity, it displays a certain vein of elegance which generally renders it attractive. The author s love of his native country, and his anxiety to emblazon the heroic deeds of his countrymen, are conspicuous in every part of the work ; nor must we leave unnoticed those aspirations after political freedom, by which he was honourably distin guished at a period when the human mind was so generally chained to the earth by the most slavish maxims of sub mission. It may be recorded as commendation instead of reproach, that his principles of polity have been represented as no better than those of Buchanan. Boece s imagination was, however, stronger than his judgment : of the extent of the historian s credulity, his narrative exhibits many unequivocal proofs ; and if this circumstance admits of a sufficient excuse from the common propensity of the age in which he lived, his work presents strong indications of another fault, for which it is not so easy to find an apology. According to Bishop Lloyd, he put Fordun s tales &quot; into the form of an history, and pieced them out with a very good invention, that part in which he chiefly excelled.&quot; (Lloyd s Historical Account of Church Government in Great Britain and Ireland, pref.) He professes to have obtained from the monastery of Icolmkill, through the good offices of the earl of Argyll, and his brother the treasurer, certain original historians of Scotland, and among the rest Veremundus and Campbell, of whose writings not a single vestige is now to be found. In his dedication to the king, he is pleased to state that Veremundus, a Spaniard by birth, was archdeacon of St Andrews, and that he wrote in Latin a history of Scotland from the origin of the nation to the reign of Malcolm III., to whom he inscribed his work. According to Bishop Stillingfleet, whose opinion has been adopted by many other writers, these historians never existed except in Boece s fertile imagination. His propensity to the marvellous was at an early period exposed in the following tetrastich of Leland:—

&quot; Hectoris historic! tot quot mendacia scripsit, Si vis ut nunierem, lector amice, tibi, lie jubeas etiam fluctus numerare marines, Et liquidi stellas connumerare poli.&quot;

Lhuyd, who attacked him in different works, spoke of his fabrications with unsparing severity, nor did he ex perience much better treatment from Stanihurst, an Irish writer of considerable reputation. Of his merits as an historian a very unfavourable estimate was formed by Lord Hailes and Mr Pinkerton. But in the opinion of Wallace, a learned lawyer, his &quot; elegant style and correct com position, not to add beautiful genius and fine fancy, are conclusive proofs that his understanding could not be in accurate.&quot; And, as Maitland, the editor of Bellenden s trans lation of Boece s history, has remarked, &quot; in forming a final estimate of the literary character of Boece, we must bear in mind that, when scholar-craft in this country at least was rare, he was a scholar, and contributed, by reviving ancient learning, to dispel the gloom of the Middle Ages ; and that, while the history of his country existed only in the rude page of the chroniclers who preceded him, or in the fading records of oVal tradition, he embodied it in narrative so interesting and language so beautiful, as to be worthy of a more refined age.&quot; Boece s History of Scotland was translated into the Scottish language by John Bellenden, archdeacon of Moray and canon of Ross. While the learned archdeacon was engaged in translating the work into prose, another indi vidual was engaged in the more formidable task of trans lating it into verse. A copy of this metrical version, containing about 70,000 lines, is preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge; a leaf seems to be wanting at the beginning, and the manuscript has suffered some other mutilations. The name of the versifier^ does not appear, nor has it been ascertained from any other docu ment ; but we learn from the prologue that his labours, like those of Bellenden, were intended for the benefit of the young monarch. From the concluding lines, it is ascer tained that he began his task in April 1531, and concluded it in September 1535. His verses are not distinguished by any considerable degree of energy or elegance, and the writer is chiefly to be commended for his perseverance. In 1528, soon after the publication of his history, Boece took the degree of D.D. at Aberdeen ; and on this occasion the magistrates voted him a present of a tun of wine when the new wines should arrive, or, according to his option, the sum of 20 to purchase a new bonnet. He appears to have survived till the year 1536 ; for on the 22d of November in that year, the king presented John Garden to the rectory of Tyrie, vacant by the death of &quot; Mr Hector Boiss.&quot; He died at Aberdeen, and, according to the most probable conjecture, he had then attained, or at least approached, the age of seventy.  BOECKH,, one of the greatest scholars that Germany has produced in modern times, was born in Karlsruhe, November 24, 1785. He was sent to the gymnasium of his native city, and remained there until he left for the University of Halle. There he devoted himself to the study of theology, as his intention was to enter the church. He had the privilege of listening to the lectures of Schleiermacher and other eminent theologians ; but at this time in Halle F. Wolf was exercising a spell over the young men and creating an enthusiasm for classical studies. August Boeckh felt the spell, passed from theology to philology, and became the greatest of all Wolf s scholars. At Easter of 1806 he went to Berlin to study in the seminary for secondary teachers, conducted by Gedike ; but the disturbances which then agitated the country sent him home. In the summer of 1807 he came out as privat- docent in the University of Heidelberg, and in the autumn of the same year he was appointed a professor extraordin- arius. Two years after (1809) he was nominated ordinary professor. In 1811 he removed to Berlin, having been appointed professor of eloquence and ancient literature in the university newly established there. Here he remained till his death, which took place August 3, 1867. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin in 1814, and for a long time acted as its secretary. Many of the speeches contained in his Klcine Schriften were delivered in this latter capacity. Boeckh worked out the ideas of Wolf in regard to philology, and illustrated them by his practice. Discarding the old notion that philology lay in a minute acquaintance with words and the exercise of the critical art, he believed it to be the entire knowledge of antiquity, historical and philosophical (esse earn universes antiqidtatis cogmtionein